Gerard Butler to Star in Tobey Maguire-Produced ‘Afterburn’

Gerard Butler is in negotiations to star in Relativity Media's adaptation of Paul Ens and Scott Chitwood's Red 5 comic "Afterburn," which Antoine Fuqua is in talks to direct, the company has confirmed to TheWrap.

The sci-fi saga is set one year after a solar flare burns half of the Earth's surface and follows a group of treasure hunters who return to retrieve what's left.

Matt Johnson ("Into the Blue") wrote the script, and Christian Gudegast ("A Man Apart") is expected to perform a rewrite.

Fuqua has managed to carve out quite a career for himself despite directing one great movie ("Training Day") that came out nearly 10 years ago. After a string of disappointments, including last year's melodramatic crime film "Brooklyn's Finest," I find it hard to have much faith in him as a filmmaker, but having said that, I do think "Afterburn" is an intriguing piece of material that represents a much-needed change-of-pace for Fuqua. I like the idea of him directing Butler in a post-apocalyptic setting, so here's hoping the film is a return to form for Fuqua.

Butler recently wrapped Marc Forster's "Machine Gun Preacher," and he's set to star in Ralph Fiennes' "Coriolanus," a modern-day adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy that will be set during the Iraq War. He also appears as a foul-mouthed leprechaun in the omnibus film "Untitled Comedy."

Butler and Fuqua are represented by CAA and their involvement with "Afterburn" was first reported by Deadline.